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Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Anticlimax

Anticlimax: an
event, conclusion, statement, etc., that is far less important, powerful, or
striking than expected; a descent in power, quality, dignity, etc.; a
disappointing, weak, or inglorious conclusion.

The following can be placed in the “Duh” category:

(CNN)—Rand
Paul, the libertarian-minded freshman senator who was once viewed as a
formidable presidential contender, is suspending his White House bid on
Wednesday, several sources close to Paul told CNN.

Rand Paul almost single-handedly destroyed the foundation
his father built.Today’s news is old
news to anyone who understood the energy behind Ron Paul’s successes – we knew
this day was coming long ago.

"It's been an incredible honor
to run a principled campaign for the White House," Paul said in the statement.

There was little principle in Rand’s campaign.This is why he is forced to drop out so soon.This campaign was dead before it started.I have written
enough about it; I will only touch on only one thought that comes to mind from
this recent news:

Indeed, as he heads into the New
Hampshire primary, where his father Ron Paul won 23% of the vote in 2012, polls
have found the younger Paul struggling to gain traction.

…[Rand] Paul had a hard time
reestablishing his father's libertarian coalition because he had sought to
broaden his appeal to more establishment-minded Republicans, hurting his
credibility with some in his core base of supporters.

Where are all the pragmatic so-called libertarians who
praised Rand for toning down Ron’s message, suggesting this was a sure way to
broaden his appeal and breakout into the mainstream?Pathetic human beings, the only thing they
accomplished was to drown out a movement toward liberty.They can be labeled as stupid…or successful.

Will Rand learn anything from this colossal waste of
legacy?We will see.I am not sure it will matter.Ron was able to build the base because his
history was clean – Ron could be trusted.Rand likely threw that goodwill away permanently – assuming he even
cares…or is mentally capable to do anything about it.

Rand can do infinitely more as a senator than his father
could as a congressman.Let’s see if he
can figure out what to do with this – assuming he hasn’t also thrown away his
senate seat in this folly.

31 comments:

I hope he loses the senate seat also. Good people do not succeed in politics, because politics is inherently such a dirty business. You either get stained and cease to be a good person, or fail/drop out. Politics is the process of deciding who gets the bigger share of wealth looted from tax payers. Rand should wash his hands of it, and get to building the liberty movement from outside Washington. Work on rebuilding his credibility.

Who will flock to an uncertain trumpet? Rand tried to straddle between truth and lust to dominate. That doesn't work. Those who are filled with the lust to dominate recognize someone who isn't fully committed and those who are seeking truth are turned off by the contradictions.

Jim, I recall a brilliant comment along these lines - I wish I could remember who wrote it. Something like: only Rand could find the sweet spot of turning off the libertarian base while not being trusted by the establishment.

Rand compromised what many of us believe are his real beliefs - he's the son on Ron Paul! That was his critical mistake. He was good on many issues, but Ron Paul was GREAT on everything. However, I do believe that Rand Paul even in his present form would have won in a general election against the Democrat. Hopefully, this was a trial run and he'll be real, unabashed libertarian in 2020.

"Will Rand learn anything from this colossal waste of legacy? We will see. I am not sure it will matter. Ron was able to build the base because his history was clean – Ron could be trusted. Rand likely threw that goodwill away permanently – assuming he even cares…or is mentally capable to do anything about it."

A truly devastating paragraph. I don't think I ever want to step in front of the BM liberty bus.

By last spring, Rand had managed - after compromising the principals of liberty on the Senate floor for not much in return - to capture the attention of the MSM. He was all set to be the upcoming electoral spectacular's "color" candidate, a perch from which he could have done the liberty movement great good, and then along came...Trump! Instead of seizing an unexpected opportunity to grab some reflected glory and expand his base by saying things like, "Of course voters are excited by Mr. Trump, a self-funding candidate of strong patriotic opinion, they have been betrayed so many times by the political class. I understand them very well..." he called them "stupid"! That's the ticket - alienate as many enthusiasts as possible as often as possible, Rand! What a churlish loser. And what a way to waste a legacy and what might have been a leg up by piggy-backing on the Donald's early success! Just one long pathetic series of cringe-worthy moments that became an orgy of self-harming.

I think it's obvious that an important debate has been decisively won, namely, the debate in which Rothbard's strategy of radical idealism has crushed the beltway libertarian's strategy of moderation and compromise.

Good riddance to Rand 2016, maybe he can do something worthy in the Senate, will be interesting what route he takes now that his 5 year obsession pursing the biggest ring of power has been given up on (we hope).

I have a rather curious theory as to why Rand Paul behaved as he did, and it has to do with the way his father was treated when he was a congressman.

I don't think anyone here needs further detail of how Ron Paul was treated throughout his career, including an appearance on Morton Downey, Jr.'s show when he was the libertarian presidential candidate. If you haven't seen the episode, he was forced to argue with the lowest stratum of society and it was entirely beneath him.

Think of it this way: He is probably the last great statesman this country will ever produce, and he was all but ignored until the twilight of his career and treated like a kook when he's been right about so much.

I wonder how watching his brilliant, kind, good-hearted, intellectual father get treated so shabbily affected Rand, who knew his father deserved better but was denied it because he didn't throw anyone a bone.

I wonder how much that impacted Rand's view of politics and his efforts to maintain respectability. I wonder if he thought his father could have accomplished more if he had just made a few strategic compromises or tried to curry the favor of the right people.

That doesn't explain why Rand embraced Black Lives Matter when they were burning down entire cities. I think that your psychoanalysis is wrong. Rand is unprincipled and a terrible political strategist.

Considering that his father was accused of being a bigot and anti-black for those newsletters, that might actually explain it. But then again he might have just been pandering.

You might entirely right, but I don't think your thoughts are mutually exclusive of my theory. I don't believe this would be the only thing that governed Rand's decisions or outlook. I've just noticed it isn't discussed or considered as having any effect on him. It's possible he doesn't realize it consciously.

Does anybody here know if any reporter ever asked him about how his father's treatment impacted him or shaped his views on how to engage the political system? If so, I'be curious to see his response.

I just know if my father was being treated like garbage on a trashy TV show like that it would have had a huge effect on me especially if I decided to go into politics.

It was exactly because of how Ron was treated that it stung so badly when Rand endorsed Romney -- at the point where Ron was finally getting a small portion of the respect he deserved for being a wise and decent human being in a city of vermin. A light not hid under a bushel. But if Ron wasn't offended it isn't my place to be offended for him. I was, but I shouldn't have been.

I dismissed Rand even before the launch of his campaign. His distancing from his father's legacy (as if it belonged to a leper) was all the evidence I needed.

However, I can see how it could happen. As TheQuestion points out, it must not have been an easy thing to see his father treated so badly. I would not be surprised if Rand himself experienced a bit of it directly growing up amongst his peers.

He is still a fool in my book though. Rand should have understood the significance of what his father achieved in 2012 and the opportunity it represented (for him to build on that). It is such a tragic waste that it is almost comical.

I think the biggest issue Rand ran into was that those of us who don't vote unless there is someone running we really do think is a honestly good person. Ron's supporters did not get behind Trump, or anyother person for that matter, they just didn't show up because Rand failed to be the great man Ron is.

I was a Ron Paul delegate in 2012. Rand turned me off when he endorsed Romney before his dad dropped out. Then he endorsed McConnell. Then he said he wasn't a libertarian but a Reagan conservative. To me, it seemed like he spent more time talking about being a Republican and the Republican party than liberty issues. He blew it.

In fairness to Rand, if he had managed to retain all of the 26,000 votes Ron Paul got in Iowa in 2012, he still would have ended up in fourth place. The problem of expanding the liberty movement's base of support remains, whether we take Ron or Rand's approach. There is a ceiling to what appeal the Pauls have, unless there is much more engagement of the cultural right and populist voting blocs within the GOP going forward.

After reading all the very interesting comments on Rand and the father/son dynamics, i'm surprised no one has thrown out yet another theory as to "why" Rand turned out to be so different from Ron.This would most likely be impossible to prove one way or the other but i wonder if there could have been some deep-seeated animosity between father and son unrelated to politics, and the son has the need to put distance between himself and his dad, to prove his independence. This theory would say the hidden family enmity played out in an arena unrelated to family itself.Psychobabble perhaps, but it did occur to me.Bill